The experts behind the true-crime series Making a Monster uncover the minds of mass murderers for an RTS audience
What makes a serial killer?
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urderers – even serial killers – are made, not born. This is the thesis of new Crime+Investigation series Making a Monster, which offers a fresh take on the increasingly popular truecrime genre. The series elicits the views of leading psychologists, interwoven with dramatic reconstructions, as it revisits the crimes of notorious killers, who include Rose West, Levi Bellfield and Aileen Wuornos. “These cases have been talked about before. Often, in true-crime series, it’s the police investigators who are the contributors, but where do the police go when confronted by something like the horror of [Rose West’s house] 25 Cromwell Street?” said Dan Korn, VP for programming at A+E Networks UK, which runs the Crime+Investigation channel. The police turn to forensic and criminal psychologists, some of whom – including the panellists at an RTS early-evening event in February – contributed to Making a Monster. The erudite series began its eightpart run last month and is made by David Howard and Rik Hall for Walesbased indie Monster Films. It aims “to go beyond the shibboleths and stereotypes, and to treat the serial killer, to a certain extent, as a patient and to get inside that,” explained Korn. Sunday Times Crime Club editor Karen Robinson interviewed the experts following the premiere of the series opener about the life of Gloucester mass murderer Rose West. It made for grim but illuminating viewing.
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Criminal profiler Professor Paul Britton adopts a “very narrow definition” of “evil” in the context of serial killers. “For me, a person is truly evil if they come into the world with no deficits,” he said. “[This is a person] with a full cognitive, functioning background; their emotional development is normal. All of the things are as they would be for most people. “Nevertheless, they find their pleasure is in harming, hurting, being cruel to other people.… That, for me, is true evil, where there is that clear choice. Most of the others behave in an evil way but, when you look, again and again you see the deficits.” However, Britton added: “It is important to recognise that thousands of youngsters come from dysfunctional backgrounds and they do not all end up in this situation. Just because a youngster was offended against, does not mean that, in turn, they will then offend.” The programme-makers secured the involvement of University of Leicester forensic psychologist Dr Julian Boon by assuring him that there “would be nothing salacious or gratuitous” in the series. Making a Monster, said Boon, “dispels the myth that there is something like a generic serial killer. Each one has to be painstakingly understood with
‘YOU DON’T BRING IT HOME WITH YOU [BUT] YOU END UP SLIGHTLY DIMINISHED’
regard to their own individual circumstances and how that expresses itself in terms of criminal activity.” Dr Samantha Lundrigan, an investigative criminal psychologist and specialist in geographic profiling at Anglia Ruskin University, said: “The series offered the opportunity to “take the [true-crime] genre in a different direction and get under the surface of these well-known offenders. “I did ask myself at the beginning, ‘Is there any more that can be said about these people?’ My answer was yes, because [the series]… tries to understand the science underneath and look at some of those techniques, such as geographic profiling, that haven’t been looked at before.” Lundrigan said that she “grew up on a diet of true-crime documentaries and books – it’s what took me into the field I’m in.… I always thought I’d be [The Silence of the Lambs character] Clarice Starling, but I’m still waiting.” The psychologist confessed that she had been “disappointed” with some of the previous true-crime series she had been involved with: “[They were] salacious and graphic, sometimes unnecessarily so, focusing entirely on the crime of the offender and not giving a voice to the victim. This has been a different experience.” Britton, who is a professor at Birmingham City University, noted that “there is so much that you still can’t say – the things that happened are so appalling”. He argued that TV programmes had to find a balance, and not “shock people so much that they are unable to… see in the life stories of these offenders [something] that alerts [viewers] to what may be going on
